Just hanging out

These past few weeks have been pretty busy but also a lovely time of hanging out and going out. Daniel has done very well with adjusting to different activities and seeing different people. 

Oscar has been around a few times and he enjoys being a help with Daniel. After growing the confidence to hold Daniel by himself, feed him the bottle, he decided last week to give Daniel his lunch. I let him give the grapes after he had eaten most of his food. Oscar did very well to avoid Daniel's teeth!

 One of my friends Ali was in Sydney for the colour conference and so she organised for my group of girls that we hung out with lots to get together. It's pretty crazy that a lot of us now have a little bub with us. It was really nice just chatting, seeing Tom and Tilly run around, having cuddles with Hannah, Daniel and Penelope. Lots of laughs, chats and good times. 

Elise with Hannah, Ali with Tom, Lyndy, Ez with Penelope, Daniel and I, Zoe with Tilly and Shell

Daniel has increased his enjoyment of standing. He isn't pulling himself up on things (nor am I encouraging that) but he does go up on his knees more and he likes to climb over things in his way. Last week I tried standing him up so he was holding onto his mobile. It was the first time that his legs didn't seem like jelly. He was quite stable standing there (I was still prepared to catch him incase he fell though). 

Standing and playing

Happy boy

 On Sunday James, Daniel and I went for a daytrip to Canberra so that James could get a photo in a capital city for the March Photo Scavenger Hunt. We left the house at 6am so that we could get to Canberra by 9:30 to go to church with Deby and James. On the way we saw a beautiful sunrise.

Daniel was a very good traveler. He slept for an hour in the car on the way and then was happy to just play and hang out after a milk feed.

Such a dag!

Just cruising in the back

Happy chappy

It was lovely to go to church with Deby and James and to hear James preach again. James took Daniel outside because he was being a bit too chatty (very cute but very distracting!) but he was happy to crawl around and apparently sat and watched James for a while too. After church we went for a drive to Parliament House for James to get his photo. Unfortunately Daniel had fallen asleep so there was no family photo there. After driving around for 40mins we then met up with James and Deby for a picnic lunch. It was very yummy and great to catch up with them. Deby had a great time playing with Daniel who was much more interested in the dirt and sticks than the toys that we brought him.

Tickles with Deby

Debbie, James, James, Deby and Daniel

For dessert James and Deby brought raspberries. Daniel hadn't tried any before so we decided to give them a go. He pulled some funny faces but was happy to eat more. Basically he either wanted it all in his mouth or none of it.

We also got to catch up with my friends from work, Deb and Nath. It was a great to see their new place and have some good chats. Daniel enjoyed choosing wines from their wine rack - Daddy's boy.

Daniel then slept for the whole trip home which was great! It was his nighttime sleep time so that was good. When we got home I fed him and then put him down but I think that with all the travelling he was wanting to have a bit of a play. After 1hr of crying and James and I going in to settle him, he eventually went to sleep. Hopefully this won't happen when we do our roadtrip to Melbourne and Adelaide as we were so tired and it was even more draining to have Daniel not want to sleep. He has settled back into a good routine now though which is good.

On Monday we decided to swap the milk feeds and solids feeds. He hasn't been very keen to eat his lunch most days and I was wondering if that was partly due to him feeling full after having a milk feed. While I still didn't feel I had my head around it, I thought it was worth a try and James agreed. At the moment Daniel is often having a milk feed around 5am and then going back to sleep. When he wakes up I give him his breakfast and then a milk feed around 1hr-1.5hrs later. After his morning nap I then give him his lunch - often around 12/12:30pm. Again, around an hour later I give him his milk feed. The difficulty is that he is seeming to have a long sleep in the afternoon. Both yesterday and today I have had to go in and wake him up at 4:30 after he has slept for 2 hours. I then give him his dinner and then a milk feed at around 5:30pm. He then goes to bed around 6:30pm. I am hoping to bring that time to around 6pm but we will see how he goes. We have decided that he will go to bed around 2hours after he wakes up in the afternoon, which has worked both Monday night and tonight. Hopefully it will continue that way. I'm happy that the switch has worked ok and I hope that it will continue to go well.

Waiting for the next spoon full

I am increasing the amount of 'finger food' that Daniel has a lunch time as he isn't very keen with using the spoon. Today he had potato and spinach but then also had carrot sticks, cheese sticks and egg cut into quarters. This worked well. When he doesn't want a spoon full, or is chewing his food he sits like this which is pretty cute. I think he learnt it from me because I sat like that while I was waiting for him to finish chewing. Oops!

He has also taken to using a cup to drink his water instead of using his sippy cup. It is pretty cute, but he does have a lot of it end up in his bib.